Modern Art - Austria / II. Republic of Austria 1999 - 7 Shilling

The waiter in the picture is not just the waiter, he is the friend. Not only the friend, he is the whole place. The portrait of the waiter is the portrait of the restaurant. In fact, it is an autobiographical picture. Every picture is such a picture for Wolfgang Herzig. "I paint people what they look like." Wolfgang Herzig paints the people in their triviality, with all their peculiarities, all their weaknesses. His pictures are "a sort of parody of our present mental and social constitution," as the artist himself puts it. The artwork should not only be a concentrated reflection of human conditions but also a paradigm of overcoming the negative. "My pictures are exactly what they represent." Wolfgang Herzig does not want to paint the incomprehensible, into which others first have to interpret something. The pictures are self statement. "If a picture has to be explained, it's bad." Prof. Wolfgang Herzig is currently leading a master class in painting at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna. Apart from oil and acrylic, the artist also works in printmaking techniques such as woodcut, lithography and etching. Perfect mastery of technique is the prerequisite for Herzig to create good art.